


The Chief End of Man

by SLWalker



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 17:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1313473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"What is the chief end of man?"</i>  A very stream of consciousness piece looking at Jimmy's shifting relationship with faith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chief End of Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jdrewz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdrewz/gifts).



> This is wildly out of context. Makes some references to the time between 7.17 and 7.21, when Cas was in the psychiatric ward in Indiana towards the end, and to a much longer piece that has not yet been posted. Very stream of consciousness.

When Jimmy thought of faith, there always came a flood of images into his mind; he thought about all of the things his faith was wrapped up in, wrapped all around, until he was nearly dizzy with it.

He thought about kneeling beside his bed, when the mattress was still higher than his head, hands folded, reciting rote prayers with a sing-song voice and a child’s certainty that God would, indeed, make sure that he would keep his soul or that his soul would go to heaven.

He thought about sitting in Sunday school with half a dozen other children, hands folded, bouncing in a wooden chair, reciting the answers to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, feeling all of the warm pride at the way his voice blended with others, as they glorified God together.

He thought of running through dusty streets and under blue skies, the heat of an Illinois summer baking into his skin; there was a time in there where he felt he could better glorify God by spending time playing outside rather than sitting inside of a stuffy church, but he paid his respects anyway.

He thought about the way his mother would get them dressed in their best; how she would comb his hair to a neat side part, how she would pull and twist her own into a bun, and it’s only as an adult and after his life is effectively over that he can find it in him (somewhere in him) to smile at how she always wore a dress that would hide her tattoos, the failed flower child returning to the religion her parents had made sure she had grown up with.

He thought about the way, when money was tight and Mom was tired, he could find solace in a God who was always there, because his own father wasn’t, and that his father was why his shoes were a little too tight and his mother sometimes had to limp on sore feet, but God must have been the reason they survived anyway, and had given them the gift of Saturday mornings and Sunday nights; when he’s an adult, after his life is effectively over, it is only then that he can find it in him to curl up around the realization that while he wore his mother’s colors and had her eyes, what he shared with his father was his ability to run away.

He thought about the way that he never felt alone growing up, not ever; that God was always watching over him, and so he didn’t do much to rebel aside to get into some heavy metal there for awhile, no drinking or drugs (though he had to admit to being tempted, sure), and even that was more to fit in with the tougher crowd than it was because he so much liked it.

He thought about how he was certain that God must have set him and Ames to cross paths; how God must have had a hand in him getting so lucky as to find this woman, who was sharp and smart and curious and funny, and how some of the very happiest days of his life were when he was just past twenty and so in love that he felt like singing all of the time; if ever he could have doubted before that, her mere existence was enough to temper his faith anew.

He thought about how it was embodied in his retail sales job, and in that apartment above a downtown storefront with a bank of windows, and how they went from movie dates and dinners to long talks into the night and plans for the future and it’s only as an adult, after his life is effectively over, that he can find it in him to cringe and realize how little he actually listened to her; how caught up he was in his own thoughts and feelings, and how good she was to have loved him anyway.

He thought about it as his own moral unease because they conceived Claire three weeks before their wedding date, but his certainty that God loved him and would forgive him made it possible for him to recite his vows with a straight face on his wedding day anyway, even though it was only three days after her pregnancy test came back positive.

That was faith; the certainty that his prayers were heard, and that they would be answered, and that he would not have to bother his head about how they were answered. That was faith; that his chief end was to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, and so that was what Jimmy did.

 

What Jimmy told no one is that it was not really God, nor even Cas, who caused him to begin losing it; that they only provided the final, fatal blows to it.

What he told no one is that faith dies slowly; that it leaks here or there between your fingers, and that the harder you try to hold onto it, the harder you cling to what you learned rote at the side of your bed or in Sunday school, the less you have it.

What he told no one is that what came so naturally as a child — the certainty that God loved him and wanted him to be happy, and to enjoy Him forever — foundered slowly and gently under bills to pay and childcare to arrange and work to go to day in and day out; with the slow tapering of conversation in his marriage as they ran out of new things to talk about; that the burden of responsibility weighed and pressed constantly, and the wistful thoughts that it wasn’t so long ago that he could run free under the sun tormented him when he let them.

What he told no one was that his pious prayer and adherence to tradition and devout certainty was a story of desperation to reach backwards and grab onto that uncomplicated love of life, love of God, love of the future, instead of forwards to more responsibility and more bills and more nine-to-five routine.

What he told no one was that his slowly fading faith was jump-started like a car battery, when his angel came to whisper in his ear; what he told no one was that he fell in love all over again with God and the future, so much so that his present was something he could look at through a stranger’s lens and then walk away from.

That was never faith, but he managed to convince himself that it was anyway.

 

What Jimmy figured out later was that he hadn’t really fallen in love with God and the future, though; he had fallen in love with being offered something brighter and better than impending middle age and twenty-eight years of mortgage; with the idea of being important and special and with the idea that he could somehow please the beautiful voice that he’d stuck his hand in boiling water for.

What he figured out later was that God didn’t care, Cas was just as lost and foolish as he was, and both of them had given themselves over to two different kinds of desperation only to find that neither of them had an answer.

What he figured out later was that, bloodlines aside, he wasn’t special because of God’s plan, but because he had loved and was loved by his wife and daughter, and in his own reckless selfishness had given it up.

What he figured out later was that God ran out on his children just like Jimmy had run out on his family, and if ever Jimmy wanted to punch the Almighty in the teeth, it was seeing what Cas went through having to stare that in the face; if ever there was a time when Jimmy realized the depth of his own betrayal to Claire especially, it was watching God’s lost son ask “Why, why?” and finding only devastation.

What he figured out later was that, Apocalypse aside, he wasn’t special because he happened to be well suited to sharing his skin with an angel, but because when it seemed all had been lost, even God, he was able to lean back on all of his mistakes and missteps and wrong turns and running and stand firm, instead.

What he figured out later was that faith was not about uncomplicated love of God and the future, it was not about rote prayer or the Westminster Shorter Catechism; it was not about going to church, it was not about giving his body in the service of the Lord; it was not about expecting God to have an answer and take care of it all.

 

Jimmy’s faith now is knowing that he can learn from his mistakes, that he can keep on the right path, that he can stand firm instead of run away, even when there’s often no real way to win the wars he keeps finding himself in.

His faith now is knowing that he is loved, and will forever be loved, not by God, but by the now ex-wife and daughter he left (even if they never forgive him) and the angel he left them for.

His faith now is looking across the veil at Cas, knowing full well just how badly Cas wants to cease to exist, and asking him to live anyway; it’s in knowing his angel will, even though he doesn’t want to, because Cas might love the Winchesters and his own shattered family enough to die for them, but he loves Jimmy enough to live for him.

 

His faith now is that he was loved, is loved, but most of all, that he loves in turn.


End file.
